You’ve got the right idea!

Appreciate the great advice !

I'd recommend the following:1) Continue to stay at home to save up more2) Buy the crappiest home in a good neighborhood, with financial help (parents?)

The beauty of this is that intermediaries who work with me know that I make “fair” offers based on VERIFIABLE facts, that I follow through with completed deals unless important information was with held or information provided was false, and that there’s absolutely no value in presenting deals to me where the seller/borrower/investor is unrealistic, naive, or otherwise wanting to “test” the market.  

Hi @Abel Curiel - can you share the consultant's name with me as well? 

Time in the market beats timing the market!

Here's the link to the spreadsheet.

In our area, the housing authority does annual inspections to (mostly making sure the landlord is keeping up the units) review the tenant and the landlord. 

Pick a screening platform/application that makes sense for you.As for meeting the applicants, I recommend meeting them at the property to show the place to them rather than getting coffee or food with them.

Listening to YouTube big shots that have great advice on professional ways to handle problematic guests ( most are great but everyone will get bad apples), staying at the property when you have an open window of time and actually get the guest experience (this is critical), and looking at your click thru and conversion rates to get a good baseline.There is way more work to running an STR than a LTR.